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episode in Warsaw, in 1956, when Gomulka had just taken over the party
and released the imprisoned Cardinal Archbishop Wychinski. A Commu–
nist intellectual rushed into the cafe of the Hotel Bristol, the meeting
place of Warsaw intellectuals, and said loudly: the Cardinal has just seen
the First Secretary of the Party. Thereupon a Catholic intellectual said,
how terrible-now everything will be forbidden . An Italian political
scientist once spoke of the Italian system as Bipartitoismo Imperfetto, sup–
pose it now becomes Bipartitoismo Perfetto-two big parties, alternating
in power or even joined in alliance. How can there be room for cultural in–
novation, political experiment, a genuine pluralism independent of ap–
paratuses which have sunk such deep roots into society as have both the
Church and the Communist Party?
Castel/ina:
I'm not very much afraid of that. Mter all, the results of the elec–
tion do not give a real image of Italian society, whose movement is much
richer, much more pluralistic, much more differentiated, than what
emerged from the elections. The elections were a simplification of Italian
society, but not a simplification which corresponds
to
the inner structure
of society itself. I don't expect that our society can be immobilized or ren–
dered stagnant by any agreement between the two major parties.
Birnbaum:
One last word, what advice do you have for us in what is, certain–
ly from a European and socialist viewpoint, politically a backward coun–
try, the United States? You did visit our country during the Presidential
elections of 1972, and you were much impressed-as I remember from
your book at the time-with the innovativeness and vitality of our country?
Castel/ina:
I am still optimistic about the United States . I don't think that
everything that was in movement in the 1960s can
be
perpetually stopped.
These things will express themselves even if there is a period of regression
at the moment. The problems to which these forces responded are still
there, and they cannot be solved by a conservative capitalistic system . Of
course, our own experiments here might be very interesting to your–
selves, might even help you . . .. But there is one thing I should warn
about. It is important to overcome the taboo against the Italian Commu–
nist Party. However, the Communists could become something like a
northern European Social Democratic Party, and do nothing, and that
could allow a counter-offensive of the right on the basis of a new
im–
mobilisme
in Italy. The point
is
not that the Communists should enter the
government, but under what conditions and with what program. There,
the independent left is very important.
